Story sharks at New Republic

You know, I try not to criticize my colleagues.

Rather than spend my time, energy, talent and resources pointing out how incompetent, biased and unfair other journalists are, I tend to think it is best to just do the job -- show them up, outclass them, outflank them, report the news, dig up the dirt and let the chips fall where they may.

But, every so often, I witness some media sins so egregious I can't help but speak up.

One such journalistic drive-by shooting is by John B. Judis in the current issue of New Republic.

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Judis and his magazine accomplished what I would have thought was impossible: They managed to write a comprehensive cover story on Labor Secretary Elaine Chao's ties to China without once mentioning the groundbreaking investigative work of WorldNetDaily Washington bureau chief Paul Sperry and WorldNetDaily staff writer Jon Dougherty.

It wasn't because Judis and the New Republic were not aware of the work. In fact, Judis began his research by e-mailing Sperry for help. His report is little more than a clever, uncredited, plagiaristic rewrite -- just clever enough to avoid litigation.

Read it for yourself. Then compare what WorldNetDaily reported in a series of stories hotlinked at the bottom of this column. If you take the time, I'm sure you will agree with me that Judis' cover story is, shall we say to be kind, "derivative." The only investigative reporting into this controversy was done right here -- at WorldNetDaily, not some wacky, right-wing, conspiratorial website. And that reporting was acknowledged by others -- the Wall Street Journal, syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin and radio talk-show hosts across the country.

All I can say is that reporting like Judis' and editing like New Republic's make me sick. They are an embarrassment to my profession. Yet they are illustrative of a broader phenomenon.

What I am seeing in this case and many others like it is a kind of maniacal professional jealousy by the old-fashioned print media of New Media sources in general, but particularly WorldNetDaily. Why WorldNetDaily specifically? Because we defy all the stereotypes. We are a real newssite, with real reporters, breaking real news, utilizing the highest standards and practices of a profession we revere. We are not some gossip sheet. We are not some tabloid. We break news -- news it is getting harder and harder to pretend doesn't exist.

So what do they do about it? They pretend to report the news and pretend we don't exist.

Here's another instance that has my dander up -- this one even closer to home.

On Oct. 22, 1999, I published a column called "Not a hate crime," in which I expressed my shock at the lack of national news reporting about the death of 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising, who was drugged, tied to a bed, raped and tortured to death by two monsters practicing an "alternative lifestyle." By sheer coincidence, on the same day, the Washington Times published a front-page news story raising similar points.

I was interviewed on radio from coast to coast about this column. I was targeted as a bigot for writing it by the ombudsperson for the Washington Post. And there is no question that WorldNetDaily, more than any other news source, put this story on the map.

Imagine then my surprise and dismay when I read the April 16 edition of U.S. Snooze and World Distort -- John Leo's column, specifically. Leo recounts how the story of Jesse Dirkhising's tragic murder came to the nation's attention.

"The Associated Press at first did not put the news on the national wire," he wrote. "But the Washington Times ran a Page 1 story. It contrasted the enormous coverage of the Matthew Shepard torture-murder with the media silence about a somewhat similar case in which the alleged perpetrators were gay. Then Brent Bozell's Media Research Center and Bill O'Reilly of Fox's 'The O'Reilly Factor' weighed in, raising the issue of media bias. 'Nobody wants to say anything negative about homosexuals,' said a research center spokesman.

"The story was soon all over talk radio and the Internet but nearly invisible in mainstream media. …"

Don't you love that -- "mainstream media"? Guys like Leo actually think the Johnny-come-lately, Lexis-Nexis punditry they do is "mainstream media." If that's mainstream, I'm glad I work upstream. Next week he'll probably be telling us how John Judis broke the Elaine Chao story.

Also, notice not just that WorldNetDaily was left out of the picture altogether, but that the Internet was the last stop for this story before the "mainstream media," according to Leo.

Now, I don't mean to pick on Leo. His sin of omission here is venial compared with Judis' sin of commission. But there's a common thread running through this growing pattern of "oversights" by the "mainstream" media. I'm finally beginning to understand it. They're jealous. They're green with envy. And they're scared to death of WorldNetDaily and what it means to the catty, corrupt world of the establishment media.

WorldNetDaily's investigative reports on Elaine Chao, the Heritage Foundation and China:

Elaine Chao's ties to Chinese leader

Chao's pro-China coup at Heritage?

Chao has biz ties to Lippo

Dissident Wu "very surprised" by Chao pick

Heritage to close old Hong Kong shop

Short hearing expected for Chao

McConnell's belated dirty-money discovery

Bush administration mum on Chao's role